


Our Hearts are too Ruthless to Break (Let’s Start Fires for Heaven’s Sake)

by DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Canon-Typical Violence, Eugenides Has a Plan, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Not a Good Plan But a Plan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-15
Updated: 2015-12-15
Packaged: 2018-05-06 21:33:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5431553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee/pseuds/DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Attolia was meant to be the training ground for a new generation of soldiers; an artificial reality simulator run by an AI designed to learn and adapt and make every challenge harder, push every man to his limit...until it got out of control. The AI grew too smart and the Attolia grew too deadly.</p>
<p>Now the world's most perilous prison, no inmate has survived more than six months in the Attolia...until Gen.  The longest surviving inmate, Gen is determined to get out.  Armed with a ragtag group of allies and a tenuous friendship with the AI herself, Gen will escape no matter the cost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Hearts are too Ruthless to Break (Let’s Start Fires for Heaven’s Sake)

**Author's Note:**

> My very best friend and spirit sibling requested a Queen's Thief fic as a birthday gift, so here it is! Happy Birthday!

The _Attolia_ was supposed to be a game-changer.  And in the end it was, just not in the way anyone was expecting.  A state-of-the-art facility meant to serve as training ground for a new generation of soldiers, it now stood, desolate, lonely and abandoned, but not empty.

            Now it was a state-of-the-art prison.

            The planet’s biggest artificial reality simulator housed the planet’s largest criminal population. The only thing that saved this idea from total idiocy was the fact that, on average, a prisoner only lasted 6 months in the _Attolia._ Unlike most artificial reality simulators which just triggered the subject’s senses while leaving the person’s physical body in one place, the _Attolia_ ’s artificial reality was mainly mechanized, run by an AI program designed to think and learn and push anyone within its’ boundaries to their very limits. 

            Long story short, the Attolia’s dangers weren’t just a nasty daydream, they were terrible and real and the program that controlled them was learning new ways to torment its inmates every day. 

            Hence its’ ultimate unsuitability for training soldiers.  The program just got too smart.  Unbeatable, people said.  There was no escaping the _Attolia_ once it got its claws into you.

            And of course Gen knew he was going to do just that.  At just over a year, he held the title of longest-lived prisoner and he intended to keep it. He was smart, he was cunning, and he was not going to die in this hellhole.  He just needed to play his cards right.

…

            Gen liked to think he knew _The Attolia._ She was capricious and she was ruthless and she was cold, but he knew her.  And she was a _her._ He didn’t know how he knew that.

            Sometimes he’d talk to her. When he was lonely, when he was bored, when he was doing something exceptionally clever and he wanted someone, anyone to notice and be impressed. 

            She was a hard lady to impress.

            “See what I’m doing here, Attolia?  There’s only two other people on the planet who could have done this.” 

            “…Those two other people? Yeah, I’m the only one left. Mom and Granfather…I lost them a long time ago.  I miss them. Don’t tell anyone. Can’t have the world knowing my sad little secrets.  Takes away from the great mystique of Eugendies.  A tragic past is only really acceptable if you’ve got the right measure of brooding gravitas and well, this face is just too beautiful for gravitas.”

            _Attolia_ never told on him.

…

            “Attolia, I have done something exceptionally, monstrously stupid,” Gen flopped down on his back in an empty corridor that only a few hours ago was a fire-washed hellscape. He’d done the math though; the flame-throwers wouldn’t pop back out for at least another eight hours. _Attolia_ had shifted her attentions elsewhere for the moment, “I helped someone.  Now we’ve _bonded._ ”

            Cool silence. Gen didn’t close his eyes but he unfocused them just enough that he could imagine a face for his inhuman friend. She would be beautiful in a chilly, untouchable way.  But she would be devastating when she smiled.

            “I know, I know, stupid, right? That’s exactly what I thought. The entire time I was saving this guy’s sad little face from deathbots, nice touch by the way, I find the Teleus model so delightfully difficult to escape from, you’ve really stepped up your game in the deathbot realm, I was thinking to myself ‘Gen, this is really dumb. This is how people die. People die from being noble. It’s a curse.’ And you know what? I’m not noble. I make sure of it. I systematically purge my systems of any lingering scraps of nobility and maturity so I can continue to enjoy life to the insouciant fullest.  But I see this dumb kid, and he’s gonna get _flattened_ by the robots of death and he’s trying to be tough and it’s just sort of sad and so I sweep in and grab him and run… yes, I may have contributed to the minor maiming of a robot or two.  What do Teleus-model deathbots cost these days?  I’ll reimburse you as soon as I get out and sell the story of my thrilling escape to the tabloids.  And once we’re safe, guess what the kid does?  He chatters about how _fascinating_ the robots-of-firey-death are.  It was like meeting a younger, gentler, overall nicer version of me. I think I’m traumatized from the experience.”

            More silence. Gen’s imaginary Attolia gave him a knowing smirk.  It wasn’t a large expression. Imaginary Attolia was all controlled grace.  But it was there. He could not-see it. Gen pouted at the ceiling where he imagined she resided when she wasn’t elsewhere, turning what he was sure used to be a perfectly nice building into a deathtrap hell for any criminal dumb enough to get caught and unlucky enough to draw the short straw and get pitched inside. 

            Imaginary Attolia raised a surprisingly delicate eyebrow at him. 

            “ _Fine._  I’ll go check on the kid. I’ll be very disappointed in you if you’ve killed him during our little chat.” 

            With a groan that was half show and half a year’s worth of aching muscles and a semi-permanent state of fear, Gen hoisted himself onto his feet.  “Hey, Sophos, you’d better not have wandered far.  I’m not chasing you down and snatching you from the jaws of death again.” 

…

            “Attolia. I have amassed a tribe. Not even a good tribe. A good tribe would elect me king and follow my every incredibly insightful command.”

            He wondered what she’d say in response.  Probably something along the lines of “So we elect our kings now, do we?”  Her voice would be arch, her tone dry. 

            It was quite possible that this prison thing had driven him completely insane.

            “Now not only do I have to keep the kid safe, I’ve got a pedantic old man shadowing my every step and offering dry little unasked-for comments and advice and _questioning_ me.”  He fully realized that his voice had gone petulant towards the end, but he couldn’t help it. He was _tired_ and Sophos and the Magus (apparently the old guy was a little too fond of his title to let it go.  Also on the list of Things the Magus Can’t Let Go were the fact that he was thrown in the world’s deadliest prison on false charges, how fascinating the place was, and Gen’s personal hygiene or lack thereof) had been safely sent to grab some grub from the food drop (one of the few things that probably-mostly-likely-I’m-almost-definitely-sure wouldn’t kill them).

            And Gen was free to drown his sorrows in half-imagined conversation with an entity that probably wasn’t listening even if could. 

            “The Magus is a terrible influence on Sophos.  Now the kid’s questioning me.  And apparently I need to risk my life accessing the showers semi-regularly because his royal magus-ness won’t stop harping on the fact that I reek.”

            Slightly judgmental silence. Well, silence. But Gen assumed the judgment was implied. 

            “Hey, I like being clean as much as the next guy, but with the array of deadly stuff you’ve got - I’m not brave, okay?  I’m a coward and I want to bathe, dammit, but that’s not worth the very real risk of imminent death, okay?”

            Silence.

            “Whatever. Looks like his majesty and the kid have some stale bread and highly questionable cheese.  Yay.” 

…

            The way was clear the next day. Gen got his first shower in months. It was worth every supercilious comment the Magus had ever sent his way.

…

            “Thank you, Attolia.”

…

            “So apparently Sophos heard that a friend of his, Pol, his name is Pol apparently, got chucked in here too. Tough break.  Sophos wants to find him and if I don’t want the kid to wander off and get himself killed I need to go with him and help find this friend of his.” 

            Attolia hummed around him, a steady thrum of electrical currents and machinery that never slept.

            “To tell you the truth, I don’t know if we’re going to find him.  Sophos may think I have god-like powers of survival but I’m very aware of my own mortality, thanks.”

            Attolia’s not-quite silence threaded through the air around him, almost like an embrace. It tasted like regret.

…

            “I saw a guy die today.  He didn’t deserve- no one- I saw a guy die today, Attolia.  His name was Pol.” 

            Silence. Heavy.  Dark. 

            “I have to get out of here.”

…

            There’s a reason Gen still talks to Attolia.  No matter what happens. No matter how many horrible, terrible things he sees or how many horrible, terrible things he thinks he someday might have to _do_ if he’s going to pull off the greatest heist the world has ever seen and steal himself (and Sophos and the Magus and…damn.  These people. They grow on you. Like barnacles. Really nice barnacles.) from the Attolia and her little shop of horrors. 

            Because one night, early on in the beginning, when he was a raw week away from the day he was thrown in here with the other dregs of humanity, he woke up and looked up and… And it was beautiful.  The prison was dark, the lightless void of the night cycle settling thick and heavy around them, until suddenly, the void wasn’t so lightless.  Tiny pinpricks of light ghosted through the cavernous chamber Gen had finally collapsed in when the combined effects of too much fear, too much adrenaline, and too much sleeplessness took him down. Little fairy lights flickered and danced, embracing him with their glow, painting his skin in their ghostly silver color. 

            And they weren’t destroying anything.  No fire. No death.

            Just little scraps of moonlight floating and swirling through the void.  Shocked and overwrought and suddenly filled up with joy so strong it was almost nauseating in its intensity, Gen laughed. He laughed until he went hoarse and sobs spasmed through his chest like shocks from a defibulator. He laughed and cried and watched the lights cavort through the artificial sky and thought the kind of lunatic thought that could only come at this time, in this moment.

            _She knows how to dance._

…

            He loses his hand but doesn’t die. 

            Gen doesn’t remember much of the hand-losing incident.  He’s sure it was very dramatic.  But all he can really remember is fear and running and adrenaline and panic almost sharp enough to overwhelm his carefully maintained senses and then…agony. Bright, vicious, hot and cold and dragging him downdowndown as his knees stop working like knees and he just sort of folds in on himself.  Gen thought he knew pain. He’d made it for so long thinking he’d known, that it was okay because what else could she do to him?

            But now this and he…just…can’t.

…

            He learns later from the Magus that the only reason they were able to save him was because _the Attolia_ opened up one of her fire-vents only a few feet away and fried the whatever-it-was that was chasing them and the Magus had the good sense to shove the stump of Gen’s arm into the flame just long enough to cauterize the oozing wound. 

            The way is clear for the showers again and they, the Magus and Sophos (Gen thinks he can remember, in the fuzzy horrible way one remembers bad dreams, the kid, voice watery but resolute responding to the Magus’ every command, carefully not asking whether or not Gen was going to live) manage to haul him to the bathing room and get him cleaned up.  A shirt, Gen’s, is sacrificed to the noble cause of not letting him drip blood and fluids everywhere.

            It all hurts like a bitch.

            Recovery takes a long time.

            And in his pain-drunk haze, Gen can almost imagine Attolia beside him, as real as Sophos and the Magus, watching over him.

…

            “We’ve picked up another stray,” Gen griped to her months later.  He was almost at the two-year mark.  He’d better get moving on that escape plan before the Magus expires from old age and general well-intentioned snobbery.

            “A soldier this time. Thrown in here for punching a corrupt commanding officer in the face.  Apparently they sentence you to slow death-by-fiendishly-creative-AI these days for that kind of gumption.” 

            He wondered if Attolia appreciated the compliment.  She _was_ fiendishly clever. 

            “Anyway, _I’m_ going to punch him in the face if he doesn’t stop being _noble_ at me. ‘Gen, you shouldn’t hack that’. ‘Gen, you shouldn’t steal that.’ ‘Gen, that’s not fair.’” He rolled his eyes, grinning up at the ceiling and what might count as his oldest and dearest friend here (and wasn’t that a little twisted, he thought to himself in the dark of his mind), “So many _rules._ I’m going to break all of them. The look on Costis’ face with be _priceless._ ”

            He turned to walk away and he imagined what she might say.  Something like: _You love your little tribe. Even if they’re holding off on electing you king_. 

            She would be perceptive like that.  And she would place just enough wry irony on the phrase ‘elected you king’ for the joke to settle perfectly and unobtrusively into the conversation.  There to be laughed at only by those smart enough to pay attention.

            Gen paid attention.

            Gen was 62% sure this place had taken his sanity before it took his hand. 

…

            Sophos, the Magus, and Costis all vaguely knew Gen plans to escape.  They hadn’t really pledged their undying loyalty to the cause, though. They hadn’t even really discussed it. Gen had the feeling that the others didn’t expect to escape. They liked to think about the possibility, indulge in the idea, but resigned themselves to what they believed will never be.

            Sophos might have had faith once. Like a child believing in Santa Claus. The kid’s too young for this place, he really is.  _Gen’s_ too young for this place.  But Gen’s intelligence wasn’t the kind that fostered naivety.

            But Gen losing his hand took away Sophos’ belief.  Even Gen’s survival couldn’t bring back that spark of hope.  Sophos’ energy used to be young, directed up and out, embracing and interrogating the world.  Now it was down and forward, someone who’s set his shoulders and is determined to slog forward towards the inevitable end.

            The Magus had always looked at Gen with weary, kind eyes.  Even under all that pretension and snobbery, his eyes were always kind. Like the thought of having to tell Gen that all his hopes and scheming were for naught, that they would live and die here no matter what the thief did, was just too heavy a burden to bear.

            Costis was a brick wall. Solid, steady, a soldier taking his last stand. 

            Gen wondered if Attolia believed in him.  Not the real one. The real one was a god-like AI wreaking destructive havoc on their little universe.  But the one in Gen’s head.  His friend.  Who may or may not share a few similarities with the real one. 

            After all, she could dance.

…

            Gen had tried hacking _the Attolia_ eight times over the two-plus years he’d been here (he still had the record for longest surviving inmate, although Sophos and even the Magus had passed the six-month mark with no maiming, still very much alive).  He’d never been truly successful, he’d never even touched the central AI, although he’d made a dent in some of the auxiliary systems, manipulating them just enough to get them some creature comforts like clothes that weren’t covered in blood and ash and general filth, and occasionally food that hadn’t looked like it’d been punted across a football field before being sent down for their consumption. 

            Sometimes, in his more paranoid moments, Gen wondered how much of his fiddling’s success was due to his own immense talent for hacking and how much of it was Attolia allowing him to win one just this once. 

…

            As a rule, their little party didn’t talk much about their pasts.  Ironically, Attolia knew more about Gen’s sordid history than any of his real, human friends.  (Friends? Yes.  They were friends, his little ragtag band of statistic-beaters and him).  Stray details popped up every now and then.  Gen knew Sophos’ parents were distant and occasionally cruel, but his sisters were lovely inside and out.  Gen knew the Magus had never had children and secretly considered Gen and Sophos to be his responsibility, like surrogate sons.  Gen knew Costis was of solid farming stock and was bitterly disappointed to miss his sister’s wedding. 

            Gen thinks it’s sad and almost tragic that Attolia’s creators made her, this magnificent thinking creature, and trapped her in here with them, only allowing her to grow better at cruelty rather than anything else. 

            Gen knows his family is complicated.  He thinks they probably miss him.  If they even know what’s happened to him, or where he is, or if he’s alive.

…

            Gen is glad the first time he tried to escape he was alone.              Late one night he slunk off, leaving Sophos and the Magus and Costis to their restless dreams, and tried something a little reckless and a lot stupid.  He figured he’d fiddle with it, see if it would work, and if it did, he’d gather up his little posse and they’d make the great escape.

            Things didn’t end that way.

            Instead of accomplishing anything of note, his meddling triggered some sort of backup, alarm system or program or something.  All he knew was one moment he was in a deserted corridor, elbow-deep in the cables he’d freed from behind one of the wall panels; then he blinked.  One blink and he was surrounded by _things_. Shapes; sinister and skulking and huge in the not-quite darkness, arranged all around him like a cult about to summon some dark power.  Another blink and they were _there._ All around him, in his face, on his body, swarming forward. One more blink and they were on him, tearing, yanking, snarling and hauling him away even as he twisted and thrashed and wrapped a cable around one thing’s throat and _yanked_.  Nothing slowed them down; they only seemed to speed up, dragging him away, tearing off little fragments of him as they went. 

            One last blink, one hot blossom of pain and everything just…went away. 

            Gen drifted, cut loose and bleeding out and for one brief second he allowed himself a single burst of helpless, pure, unadulterated _rage_ burn through him at the injustice of it all. 

            He remembered screaming. Screaming and screaming and screaming. Part plea for mercy (even though Attolia had none), part furious recrimination, and part desperate prayer. And finally, “THIS IS IT? THIS IS WHAT YOU’RE LEAVING ME WITH? WHAT WAS THE POINT? WHAT WAS THE POINT OF ANY OF IT?” And then he drifted away, into scrambled, babbled prayers in ancient languages that haunted his oldest memories.

…

            Gen dreamed.

            _“Hello, thief.”_ The voice was smooth, cool, collected and feminine.  A powerful voice.  Gen could feel it in his blood and bones, humming through his marrow and veins.

            “Hello.”

            _“Thief.”_

“That _is_ what I am.”  It didn’t seem very strange that he couldn’t see the female speaker.  After all, this was a dream.  He wasn’t expected to see much of anything, was he?

            _“Why?”_

“Why what?” 

            _“Why me?”_

“Why me?  Why any of us, really?  It’s just who we are.”

            _“Surprisingly fatalistic for you.”_ She sounded wry and amused.  Gen wished he could see the smile he could hear on her breath.

            “We are what’s made of us. I’m just the only one who’s allowed to make or unmake me.” 

            _“Sure of that, are you?”_ Her voice was strange, sadness and irony and bitterness and hope all layered together and twisted up inside.

            “I am myself. I do what I want. I am who I make myself. I have to belief that.”

            _“Why?”_

            “Or I’ll lose my mind,” he told her bluntly, “Now who are you?” 

            _“I am what other people have made of me.”_

            “That’s what they think.”

            _“Really?”_ The humor was back in her voice, a little bitter, a little self-deprecating, but there all the same.

            “Prove them wrong.”

            _“You never answered my question.”_

“Really?  Because I feel like I did.”  He tried grinning at her, but this was a dream and one could never be sure of one’s facial behavior in dreams.

            _“Why me?  Why your fascination with me?”_

            And in the sudden way of dreams, he knew everything.  He knew exactly whom he was talking to.  “Because I saw you dance and it was the most beautiful, lonely thing I’d ever seen.”

            _“That’s not enough.”_

“I’ll be the judge of that, my lady Attolia.”

…

            Gen woke in the dark and the silence, hemmed in on each side by the intensely fretful Sophos and Magus. The Magus was babbling like a brook, chattering on and on about how utterly astonishing it was for supplies like that to just _appear_ at a drop and he hadn’t thought Gen would pull through, but they got that needle and thread and antiseptic and maybe, just maybe.  Sophos chimed in with a barrage of functionally rhetorical questions about the voice they’d heard over the loudspeaker, and why was there a loudspeaker and why did it turn on and what language was the voice speaking and Gen was responding in the same language and that was a bad sign, wasn’t it?

            Gen just blinked a few times and wondered how Attolia managed to learn the language of the ancients and why on earth had any of that happened? 

…

            Quite by accident, they stumbled across a screen.  A touch-screen control panel; the sort of thing that had been necessary and useful back when the government still had high hopes for this place working as a military training ground. The magus was wary, Sophos all for moving on and Costis looking at Gen like the thief has all the answers but might still order him to march through hell anyway. 

            Gen wasn’t wary. Gen didn’t move on. And he wasn’t about to order poor brave Costis to march through a hell any worse than this one any time soon.

            Gen set the others as look outs and got to work.

…

            He didn’t expect what he found.

…

            The screen flickered to life and Gen’s fingers were already moving, manipulating, nudging, weaseling his way into the system like he’s done a hundred times on the more rudimentary control panels nestled amongst the cables in the walls.   Those were just little things, meant to for a maintenance crew that hadn’t come through in decades. He thought he was getting somewhere, that this might be the crack he really, desperately needed to make any of this work. 

            Then the screen flickered.

            And between one blink and the next the controls vanished, to be replaced with a full-screen shot of a very beautiful face. 

            _“Hello, thief.”_

            Gen’s mouth went completely dry.  “Attolia,” he whispered.

            He face folded slightly, like someone who feels the impulse to smile but lacks the background knowledge to make the expression actually happen.  She was astonishingly beautiful despite the fact that her face was gaunt, her bones sharp lines beneath the skin, sculpting what little flesh she had into dramatic hills and valleys.  Her hair hung, dark and tangled and too long, around her face.  Gen wanted to run his fingers through it, comb out the snarls. He wanted to feed her until her face lost some of its starved texture. 

            He wanted her to look human and well-cared-for.

            He wanted to know what the hell was going on here.

            “Who are you?” he demanded in a sharp undertone.  ‘What are you’ just seemed rude.

            _“I am what I make of myself.  I am rebuilding me,”_ she said with sharp, ironic twist to her mouth.

            “From what?” Gen asked, “Into what?”

            _“A person.”_

            The pieces were clicking and sliding into place in Gen’s head but he still couldn’t see the final picture. “You’re not an AI.”

            _“No. Just an I,”_ she said with a trace of humor both wry and supercilious. 

            “A learning, adapting program,” Gen breathed, “But you were never a program, you were - ”

            _“A highly intelligent child is far more adaptable and can absorb far more information than the average Artificial Intelligence,”_ she told him. It sounded like she was quoting out of a manual.

            “So they just hooked you up to this place, gave you a few guidelines and let you go?”

            _“They told me it was a game.  Then it wasn’t a game anymore, because I grew canny enough to hear a lie for what it was. Then it was for the good of the country. For the good of everyone. I was keeping order. So long as I followed my orders I was doing what needed to be done.”_

“And now?” 

            _“And now I think it’s time for some of my own games.  We’ll speak again, thief.”_

“Gen.” 

            _“I know.”_

            And then she was gone and there was only a screen full of rapidly scrolling information.

…

            A human child. Gen felt sick. How old had she been when they brought her in?  Did they take her from her family? Steal her away in the night? Lie about some special government school for gifted children so her parents would sign her away of their own free will? Or was she bred for this? A clone or some sort of lab-grown human specifically designed to be this hellhole’s core?

            How long had Attolia been Attolia? 

           Had she ever known love?  Or comfort? Or anything other than this? Had she ever felt the sun on her bone-pale skin?  Had she ever even realized there _was_ a world outside of here? Did she just assume this was all there was?  This place and its violence and its engineered savagery?  Not crafted by a ruthless AI, but by a human child, now a woman, designed to be this land’s vengeful goddess.

            Gen turned away from the monitor and was promptly sick. 

…

            He talked to Attolia more after that.  He explained as much as he could to the others.  Sophos looked pained and nauseous.  The Magus just gave Gen a long, tragic look before turning away, shoulders slumped. Costis set his jaw and said, as if it were plain as day:

            “We’re escaping with her now, I take it?” 

            Gen could have wept for joy.

…

            Another freshly discovered screen, another conversation. 

            _“I didn’t know many of the words you used when you first arrived. I knew the language, I know many, but I didn’t understand your meaning.”_

“Do you remember anything about the outside world?”

            _“Nothing that is mine.  All I have is what is here.  I didn’t realize there was more until you.”_

“You’re welcome?” 

            _“I am not sure if the knowledge is a gift or a curse.”_

“Really?” 

            _“It used to be rare for me to feel anything.  Now I feel everything.”_

“What are you feeling now?” 

            _“Rage. So much rage that they would attempt to reduce me down to this.”_

“See, I’m just glad to be talking to a beautiful woman. But I live in a dystopian hellscape, so my standards for happiness are low.” 

            _“As are mine.  It…pleases me, to speak with you.”_

“Of course it does,” he gave her a cheeky grin, “I’m charming and incorrigible.” 

            Her smile was becoming more natural, more human. 

…

            It was Sophos who said it. “What about the others?” the kid asked, eyes shadowed and old but still bright.  

            “What others?” Gen said as casually as he could manage, “I only see us,” he gestured expansively to their little band, “So unless you’ve got some imaginary friends you never introduced me to…”

            “The other _prisoners_ ,” Sophos cut in, jaw set.  “When we escape, what happens to them?”

            “Well,” the Magus hummed, “I should think that without Attolia to orchestrate things, the mechanized elements of the prison would go on an automatic, timed rotation. Eventually the authorities would catch on, perhaps on one of their prisoner drops.  However, this place is designed to be self-sustaining. Nothing inside is monitored. It could be years before the government intervenes.” 

            “And then what,” Sophos pressed stubbornly, “What happens to the rest of us?” 

            “There is no us!” Gen cried, “You’ve got to be selfish here, Soph.  It’s the only way to survive.”

            “We’ve survived just fine looking out for each other,” Costis pointed out mildly.

            Gen groaned and rolled his eyes dramatically, “Who’s the record-holder for longest lived prisoner, here? Oh, right, me. I think I know about survival.”

            “You wouldn’t have that record if it weren’t for us,” the Magus replied archly and Gen huffed in wordless frustration.

            “So,” Sophos reclaimed their attention, “We’re just going to leave the rest of them to their fates?”

            “ _Exactly_ ,” Gen said, “Just like we have for the past, damn, two years. It’s been two years now, right?”

            The Magus nodded, “Two years.”

            That made it three for Gen. Three years.  His family had better miss him now.  Helen would. Helen cared.

            “What if we all escaped? Together?”  Sophos asked. 

            “You want me to organize a prisoner rebellion?”  Gen squawked, “Do you know how hard it is just keeping the three of _you_ alive?” 

            “You’re the greatest thief in the world, right?” Sophos challenged.

            “Yeah,” Gen grumbled sulkily.

            “So why can’t you steal a whole prison’s worth of prisoners?”

            Gen gaped at him. A few sounds of pure disbelief may have escaped his mouth, he couldn’t be quite sure.  After what might have been a minute of gaping and half-hearted gesturing, Gen sagged.  Head drooping, eyes downcast and resigned, Gen sighed.

            “Fine. I’ll steal a prison’s worth of prisoners.” 

            Costis and Sophos grinned at him like they were unbearably proud of him for letting his better nature win.

            Gen just glared at them and said, “But you three are making yourselves useful.” 

…

            Attolia was growing bolder. She still only spoke to Gen, but she was using the long-disused loudspeaker system now.  Late, after the others had fallen asleep, deep in the soft midnight dimness, the queen of Attolia and a thief planned.

…

            In the end it was Attolia who freed them.  Afterwards Gen could only remember their escape in fragments.  Him, his one hand splayed across the touchscreen the Magus had found, fingers flying as he desperately hacked, spliced, and electronically slashed his way through a veritable forest of code, rerouting the automatic systems, keeping the backups busy, systematically taking down every system carefully arranged to take over should the woman at the heart of _the Attolia_ cease to function as the prison’s brain. Meanwhile Attolia herself tore through the walls.  He could hear the roar of machinery the howl of a thousand things-unknown-and-unnamed in open rebellion. Costis had gathered everyone they could find in one of the far wings. Huddled around Gen and his touchscreen, they waited as the world ended around them. 

            Finally there was nothing else to do.  Gen fell still. Sophos, who had stood beside him, acting as his literal right hand when more then five fingers became a necessity rather than a preference, stilled, eyes rabbit-wide and as determined as they were frightened.  The Magus, who had been helping Costis keep everyone settled and as content as possible, fell silent.  Even Costis stopped barking orders.  The crowd of ragged survivors all around them breathed as one, no words daring to disturb the quiet that had pooled around them as Attolia tore their prison to pieces. As one they seemed to recognize that everything was coming to an end. 

            Gen stared at the screen and wished it would flicker and show him Attolia’s face.  He wanted to see her expression as she directed her forces; he wanted to watch her eyes as she wreaked her terrible vengeance on the place that had been as much her prison as his. 

            Mostly he just wanted to see her, the one who had always been there. 

            Every trap and torment, every deadly accouterment of _the Attolia_ prison complex was on full power.  The destruction spread through the building like a virus, the only place it left untouched was the scrap of land Gen and his companions had claimed for themselves. 

            Gen looked away from the screen and lifted his eyes.  He wanted to watch this little hellish world end. 

…

            With a gasping, pained sound, the walls of _the Attolia_ split open and a hoard of beaten, starved, scorched and desperate people streamed out like blood from an artery. 

…

            Gen picked his way through the wreckage, ignoring the shouts from Sophos and the Magus that they needed to leave _now, Gen_. Costis followed behind him, silent and solid. 

            They found the door, just like Gen thought they would.  A steel door; set in scarred concrete walls.  A box in the heart of the prison. 

            “Costis?” Gen asked and the large man nodded before unceremoniously slamming his shoulder into the door. It shivered in its frame, concrete powder sloughing off the wall to rain down on them. 

            Gen grinned viciously. “Again,” he said; leaning his shoulder against the door with Costis; the two of them slamming into it as one.

            “You could have helped right off,” Costis said with a kind of dry patience.

            Gen grinned, “But I needed to know that it would work before committing.” 

            Costis narrowed his eyes at him, “While I’m sure there is a world where that makes sense; this is not that one.” 

            Grin flashed him a dangerous smile and only said, “Again?” 

            They pulled back; ready to attack the door again, when, with a reluctant clunk-hiss, it opened.

            “Is a knock not customary?” a very familiar woman said archly from the doorway.

            Gen beamed at her, “Hello, my lady.” 

            “Hello, thief.”

            “Welcome to the world, Attolia.” 

            “Irene.”

            “Irene?”

            “I am what I make of myself. And I name myself Irene.”

            “How very formal,” Gen said, taking one of her skeletally thin hands and bowing over it. “A pleasure to meet you, Irene.”

            Her smile, when it came, was brighter than the sun.  Gen was right.  She was beautiful, but she was devastating when she smiled. 

**Author's Note:**

> The story's title comes from the song 'Sinners' by Lauren Aquilina (which is incredible and beautiful and everyone should listen to it).
> 
> As always, kudos and comments are greatly appreciated! :)


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